Filling the empty months in Adelaide’s Festival calendar.

[peachy]

It’s a common misconception that nothing happens in Adelaide in the months post-March up until December. Of course this isn’t the case, but it is true some months are lighter on than others. So it would be nice to have a big festival which takes over the city and defines each month of the year. This would really secure our place as Australia’s festival city and make any time of year a good time to visit Adelaide.

So why not brainstorm some new ideas for events to fill some of the voids here.

I think our defining festivals should fill a majority of the following attributes:
-Be the best of that type of event in Australia and one of the best in the world
-Run for the better part of two weeks plus
-Take over the city centre and maybe extend through suburban centres to rural SA.
-Widely accessible

First though a summary of what we already have on offer:
January’s Defining Festival: Tour Down Under
-What is primarily a cycling race has, in true Adelaide fashion, become a state wide festival of the bike.
-Easily the premier cycling event in Australia, it also is UCI accredited making it the first Pro event outside of Europe and from 2011 one of only two, alongside the Tour of California.
-Running for 7 days, it has scope for growth in time. Other international equivalent races (e.g. Tour Switzerland, California, Pologne) run for just over a week and the big three (Tour France, Italy, Spain) run for 3 weeks. There’s also potential to run a women’s version straight before, increasing the festival’s length.
-Whether it’s seeing a racing stage pass through your own suburb/town/region, or seeing the sheer numbers of the public who take to the roads on two wheels, or passing through the Bike City/Cycling HQ in Victoria Square, you know when the race is in town.
-Combining professional racing with community fitness, viewing each stage is free to view and at least one is likely to be near you. You can even ride in a community stage.
January’s supporting cast: Schutzenfest, World Tennis Challenge, Australia Day, International Cricket

February’s Defining Festival: Fringe
-A little bit of everything; it’s a comedy festival, circus, carnival, theatre rolled all into one plus more.
-Number 1 in Australia and the southern hemisphere, in size and scale, The Fringe is second in the world only to Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival.
-Running over 3 weeks, it actually occupy’s more of March than February. But in February is when it starts and the focus is solely on the Fringe, with everyone excited and keen to get down to the Garden of Unearthly Delights and see what’s on this year.
-With street performers and performance popping up in every nook and cranny in town The Fringe takes over.
-With many free and cheap shows in all performing styles and genres, there something on to suit everyone’s tastes and budget.
February’s supporting cast: Carnevale, International Film Festival, Various music festivals

March’s Defining Festival: Adelaide Festival of Arts
-Our named event, the high-end performing arts festival’s success holds Adelaide’s reputation as Australia’s art capital in the balance.
-It’s currently and historically regarded as the premier Festival of Arts in Australia by most in the industry. It’s renowned internationally and attracts the best acts from around the world.
-Running for first two weeks of March, it’s about quality not quantity.
-With the momentum of the Fringe carrying over and merging with the Festival, there’s usually always some big ticket public items. The Northern Lights, Victoria Park Fireworks and Elder Park giant balloons display have been the latest offerings.
-There are usually a couple of free shows. As for the rest, it’s usually pricier than The Fringe but it gives Adelaide access to the best the globe has to offer.
March’s supporting cast: WOMAD, Adelaide Cup, Clipsal 500, International Rugby Sevens Tournament

April’s Defining Festival: ?
April’s supporting cast: Easter, ANZAC Day, AFL/SANFL

May’s Defining Festival: Tasting Australia
-A still newish biennial food and wine festival containing both a public and industry exchange aspect. It could turn May into a month long of celebration of good eating.
-It’s the number one food and wine festival in Australia and getting attention overseas, with many international chefs now attending. This status helps cement South Australia’s reputation as the nation’s best food and wine region and is only fitting for the state.
-Taking place in the first week of May every other year, making it annual would be a first step then letting it grow naturally with time will allow it to really define May.
-The Elder Park weekend food fair allows this festival to rule the city for a couple of days. There’s also plenty of celebrity chef sighting around town and hosted events for the entire week.
-The Elder Park weekend has many free cooking demonstrations, open forums and a kid’s in the kitchen cooking tent. Plus there is plenty of different foods and wines to sample.
May’s supporting cast: AFL/SANFL

June’s Defining Festival: Cabaret Festival
-The name pretty much sums it up, Cabaret. It offers a good night out in the beginning of winter, with a mix of entertaining performances.
-Not Paris, Berlin or New York, but Adelaide holds the biggest cabaret festival in the world.
-The Queen’s Birthday long weekend kicks off the two weeks of fun.
-With its hub at the Festival Centre, big name acts and good media coverage, the festival has whole city appeal.
-The festival has made cabaret mainstream.
June’s supporting cast: AFL/SANFL

July’s Defining Festival: ?
July’s supporting cast: Festival of Ideas, AFL/SANFL

August’s Defining Festival: SALA Festival
-The South Australian Living Artists is a visual arts festival which sees every bar, café and restaurant become an art gallery. With art everywhere around the city, it makes any little errand around town pleasant.
-There is supposedly not another festival like it anywhere.
-The festival goes for a whopping three weeks for most of August.
-It’s a street level invasion as your local shop and pub lend their walls to be covered in art.
-Everything is free and venues are located anywhere and everywhere.
August’s supporting cast: AFL/SANFL

September’s Defining Festival: Royal Adelaide Show
-The country comes to the city and brings with it farm animals, flowers and wood chopping. As well as of course amusement rides, junk food and show bags.
-Each Australian capital has a show, with Adelaide probably being the smallest.
-The show goes for just over a week.
-It’s the talk of the town with everyone knowing someone going to the show.
-Fun for the whole family.
September’s supporting cast: AFL/SANFL including SANFL Grand Final, City to Bay Fun Run

October’s Defining Festival: OzAsia Festival
-A cultural infusion of Asia meet Australia. Not only does it strength our links with some of our nearest neighbors, it celebrates our region of the world.
-Another Adelaide unique event.
-Lasting two weeks, it fluctuates between September and October depending on the year.
-Another one that has the Festival Centre at its heart and the Moon Lantern opening night leaves a lasting impact.
-The Moon Lantern opener is free and open to all and the rest is a cultural smorgasbord.
October’s supporting cast: Glendi

November’s Defining Festival: ?
November’s supporting cast: International Horse Trials, Christmas Pageant, Feast Festival, Classic Adelaide Rally, Adelaide Guitar Festival

December’s Defining Festival: ?
December’s supporting cast: International Test Cricket, Christmas, New Years

So as you can see we are already have most months covered. Some of the festivals probably need some padding to meet my initial criteria, but that’s just going to come with time and support.
As for those months without a defining festival; December doesn’t really count as Christmas and end of year celebrations take over and April is often consumed with people going away on Easter/school holidays and ANZAC day.
So really July and Nov are the two ones that need the suggestions. (maybe Sept is a bit weak with the show as it fails most of my test, i.e. its not the best/unique in Oz, it runs only for a week. Although you can spot showbags all over the city and it’s accessible, plus it uses up a lot of people’s going out money for the month so maybe its ok.

Okay I’ll stop hampering on now and throw the thread open to everyone with any thoughts on the subject…. go nuts!

[peachy]

I’ll get us started as the real reason I started this thread was that in the Tiser on the weekend it was reported that Mike Rann had meetings in London about establishing a Science Festival in Adelaide based upon the the British Science Festival.

This to me sounded pretty good and why not have it in Adel. I don’t really think of any Oz city being the most sciency, so there’s no reason we aren’t the rightful city to have a science festival. After all we are the Kings of Oz at doing festivals, which is one half of a science festival, and we love to turn anything and everything into a festival. Plus I think Adelaide prob does alright per capita relative to the other capitals in the field of science. We’ve had nobel prize winners, medical breakthroughs and an australia's only astronaut come from our town. Plus we have the Royal Institute of Australia which no doubt would be the heart of the festival.

Okay now i’ve convinced you Adelaide is the place for Australia’s biggest and best science festival, time to ask what would it involve? The British one swaps cities every year and is hosted by a university, (but we would want to be the permanent host). Their brief is to engage the public in science. So personally I’m imagining plenty of public forums with science communicators, school science shows, maybe also have professional conferences as well. But what I would rally love to see is experiments running all over town, in shop windows, between office blocks and in the squares. I see a petri dish the size of a truck tyre in a shop window and every day you pass it on your way to work you notice how the bacteria has grown exponentially. Or maybe have some pendulums swinging from the lamp posts. Maybe launch a 100 rockets in the parklands or maybe a weather balloon in vic sq …etc.

Last thing to decide on would be a time. I’d suggest July. Science can’t really compete with some of the more exciting festivals so can’t really expect to get the good weather months. Plus a lot would be inside anyway. Also we have our festival of ideas in July so would complement it nicely. National science week is in the middle of August, but the festival would prob replace it in Adel. If we had the festival during science week it would take away Adel being the epicentre of science so instead perhaps the festival could be the precursor of science week. Ie have it in july in Adel and then science spreads from here throughout the country during national science week. So July looks good.

I just found a ‘science festivals’ wiki page if you are interested at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_festival

[Aidan]

February’s Defining Festival: Fringe
-A little bit of everything; it’s a comedy festival, circus, carnival, theatre rolled all into one plus more.
-Number 1 in Australia and the southern hemisphere, in size and scale, The Fringe is second in the world only to Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival.
-Running over 3 weeks, it actually occupy’s more of March than February.

Is there any reason why it can't be moved forward?

As for November, that's when the biggest event of the lot used to be before Melbourne flogged it. If we could get it back, how much say would we have as to which month it gets held in?

[Nathan]

February’s Defining Festival: Fringe
-A little bit of everything; it’s a comedy festival, circus, carnival, theatre rolled all into one plus more.
-Number 1 in Australia and the southern hemisphere, in size and scale, The Fringe is second in the world only to Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival.
-Running over 3 weeks, it actually occupy’s more of March than February.

Is there any reason why it can't be moved forward?

As for November, that's when the biggest event of the lot used to be before Melbourne flogged it. If we could get it back, how much say would we have as to which month it gets held in?

We would have next to no say on when it would be held in - but then we'd never get it back anyway. The circuit is nowhere near suitable (safety wise) for it anymore.

[Aidan]

February’s Defining Festival: Fringe
-A little bit of everything; it’s a comedy festival, circus, carnival, theatre rolled all into one plus more.
-Number 1 in Australia and the southern hemisphere, in size and scale, The Fringe is second in the world only to Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival.
-Running over 3 weeks, it actually occupy’s more of March than February.

Is there any reason why it can't be moved forward?

As for November, that's when the biggest event of the lot used to be before Melbourne flogged it. If we could get it back, how much say would we have as to which month it gets held in?

We would have next to no say on when it would be held in - but then we'd never get it back anyway. The circuit is nowhere near suitable (safety wise) for it anymore.

What safety features would be required now that we can't install?

[Nathan]

What safety features would be required now that we can't install?

The main one - large enough run off areas. The cars are far more powerful than they were 15 years ago, and safety regulations a lot tighter, so all circuits require significant run off areas (Monaco being an exemption). Many of the corners (especially around east tce) simply don't have the room for them.

[Aidan]

What safety features would be required now that we can't install?

The main one - large enough run off areas. The cars are far more powerful than they were 15 years ago, and safety regulations a lot tighter, so all circuits require significant run off areas (Monaco being an exemption). Many of the corners (especially around east tce) simply don't have the room for them.

I think you'll find the streets keep going even where the racing cars turned off! Therefore we have ample room for longer run off areas.

[crawf]

November’s Defining Festival: ?
November’s supporting cast: International Horse Trials, Christmas Pageant, Feast Festival, Classic Adelaide Rally, Adelaide Guitar Festival

November is fine, all those events draw thousands of people and are big on the national stage.

Main problem is mid year, the weather doesn't help at all.

[Omicron]

What safety features would be required now that we can't install?

The main one - large enough run off areas. The cars are far more powerful than they were 15 years ago, and safety regulations a lot tighter, so all circuits require significant run off areas (Monaco being an exemption). Many of the corners (especially around east tce) simply don't have the room for them.

It's not a speed or power issue - most of the lap records of current circuits that have been around for a few years are held by '04 cars, and most of the turbocharged engines of the '80s and V10s right through until '06 would out-grunt a current V8.

[fasterthanlids]

Last thing to decide on would be a time. I’d suggest July. Science can’t really compete with some of the more exciting festivals so can’t really expect to get the good weather months. Plus a lot would be inside anyway. Also we have our festival of ideas in July so would complement it nicely. National science week is in the middle of August, but the festival would prob replace it in Adel. If we had the festival during science week it would take away Adel being the epicentre of science so instead perhaps the festival could be the precursor of science week. Ie have it in july in Adel and then science spreads from here throughout the country during national science week. So July looks good.

July would be good - held at Adelaide University, during a semester break, there should be open space and lecture theatres available to play with. I'm also thinking a sideline design festival - covering architecture and engineering, industrial design and environmental developments.

[fabricator]

You forgot April fools day

[Vee]

Good summary, peachy.
There are many other festivals and events featuring food and wine that occur in areas within easy reach of the city eg Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale (love the Sea and Vines). These are valuable adjuncts to the festival calendar and attract interstate visitors.

On the other hand, Easter is a disappointment with very little on offer for those who prefer not to attend the-Oakbank Racing Carnival. This is a good opportunity for someone with vision to fill in the calendar for South Australians and to attract visitors during this period, rather than repel them and keep some local dollars in the economy.

Is the Classic Adelaide car rally defunct? If so, I hope it can be revived as it has been an excellent event for the festival calendar.

The excellent Cabaret Festival is a great example of what is possible during our winter weather, with Adelaide's fine reputation for putting on a good show, the best director (David Campbell) and world class acts (it is the second largest cabaret festival in the world). The redeveloped Riverside precinct and re-purposed Railway Station/Casino should enhance future opportunities to build on our reputation. Integrate the fabulous upper floors of the heritage Railway Station into an expanded arts precinct.

I would love our festivals/events calendar to be more widely publicised and for Adelaideans and South Australians to be more pro-active and supportive.

[monotonehell]

...On the other hand, Easter is a disappointment with very little on offer for those who prefer not to attend the-Oakbank Racing Carnival...

There is that whole Catholic thing going on at that time...

[Prince George]

You forgot April fools day

We should announce a bogus festival for April 1, and see who shows up.

[Nathan]

You forgot April fools day

We should announce a bogus festival for April 1, and see who shows up.

These guys would



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